Amy Garrison was 16 years old when she was stopped by a police officer and ticketed for not completely stopping at a stop sign. At the time, Garrison was working a minimum wage job and living on her own.

Timothy Livingston’s only license suspension stems from a ticket for having two broken car lights. Following the police stop, he never received anything in the mail with information regarding how to pay the ticket or the date and time of his court date. However, about nine months after he was stopped, Livingston was shocked and confused when he received a letter stating that a default judgment was entered against him, he owed the court approximately $850, and his license was suspended.

Chris S.’s driver’s license was suspended five times for failure to pay fines. He never received prior notice that his license was being suspended. He never had an opportunity to explain why it should not be suspended.

To assess racial disparities in police interactions with the public, researchers compiled and analyzed a dataset detailing nearly 100 million municipal and state patrol traffic stops conducted in dozens of jurisdictions across the country.

During the early morning of January 2, 2019, Bertrand was pulled over for his headlight and the officer informed him that his license was suspended. Bertrand had no idea that his license was suspended and later found out that it was because he had unpaid tickets from 5 to 6 years ago.

This report shares the results of a survey of 304 low-income Illinois residents who were asked about their experience with debt, including criminal justice debt. Respondents disclosed the types of debt they had, the number of debts they owed, and the emotional toll debt takes on their families.